Possible to find a nice 2 bed house with a small yard? (San Francisco: apartments, for rent)

[ncsvehla]

Thinking about moving to San Francisco but cannot afford more than $2500 a month for rent and need a 2 bed house with a small yard. I cannot share walls as I have two giant breed dogs (one of them has a very loud bark). Is it possible to find a nice place that isn't way out in the burbs?? Any neighborhood suggestions? Close to a dog park would be nice Thanks

[mayorhaggar]

Most people in SF itself live in apartments. There are a few areas with houses like the Sunset but they're almost all attached to one another on the sides, and they have small backyards and basically no front yard, also renting an entire house in SF would be expensive, probably higher than your budget. Anywhere in the suburbs has a lot of houses with yards of differing sizes, it just depends on your budget. Maybe look around Oakland, sometimes people post listings here of houses in the Oakland Hills that look like pretty good deals but I don't remember any prices.

[legal_eagle]

You'd probably have to live in a not-very-nice neighborhood at that price. Try searching Craigslist personals ... you can plug in your price range and check the "dogs" box.

[sonarrat]

What you can get is a nice 2-bedroom apartment in your range in San Francisco where you can keep at least one of your dogs and walk it around, say, Golden Gate Park or the Presidio. As for the barking, have you considered training programs for eliminating that nuisance barking?

[llowllevellowll]

Way out in the burbs, you could rent a 2 and 3-bedroom home or townhouse with a yard in a neighborhood ranging from decent to great for $1600-$1700/mo (East Bay - Hercules, Pinole, Concord, etc) for comparison's sake. If you elected on a lesser neighborhood, you could go as low as $1400 and maintain the yard and the 2-3 bedrooms in Concord and Hayward.

I agree with Sonarrat: if you decide to stay in SF-proper, I'd angle myself toward a park because yards in SF = not really happening and landlords in SF, especially, tend to be very anti-large, annoying pet. =P

Good luck.

[beb0p]

If you want to stay within San Francisco, try the nabes south of 280 (Crocker Amazon, Excelsior, Visitation Valley) or the western edge of SF (Outer Parkside, Outer Sunset, Outer Richmond). Those are burbs, but at least they're in SF. Most residence in SF proper is not single family house, so even if you can find one it's going to be sky high expensive.